Who wrote the Bible?
The Bible is not the work of a single author; it is a collection of 66 books written over roughly fifteen hundred years by many authors who lived in different lands. The first five books of the Old Testament are traditionally attributed to Moses; a large portion of the Psalms is…
The Bible is not the work of a single author; it is a collection of 66 books written over roughly fifteen hundred years by many authors who lived in different lands. The first five books of the Old Testament are traditionally attributed to Moses; a large portion of the Psalms is linked to King David, and most of the proverbs to Solomon. The prophetic books carry the names of prophets such as Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel. In the New Testament, the four Gospels were attributed in early church tradition to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John; Luke also wrote the book of Acts. Most of the letters belong to the apostle Paul, who usually introduces himself by name; there are also letters attributed to Peter, James, Jude and John. The authorship of some books is unknown — the writer of Hebrews, for example, has been debated since the earliest centuries. In Christian belief these human authors wrote under God's guidance; 2 Peter states that "no prophecy ever came by the will of man: but holy men of God spoke, being moved by the Holy Spirit." Luke, in the opening of his Gospel, says he investigated and arranged what eyewitnesses had handed down, which shows the books were written within a chain of historical transmission. Despite the variety of authors — shepherds, kings, prophets, fishermen, a physician and a scholar — the texts were collected and preserved as a whole across the centuries. The site's guide pages introduce the background of each book individually.